A storage area network (SAN) is an architecture for attaching remote computer storage devices (e.g. disk arrays, tape libraries, and optical jukeboxes) to servers in such a way as to appear to clients that the devices are locally attached. Storage devices are presented to clients by SANs as virtual volumes. Many organizations utilize SANs to connect storage devices such as RAIDs (redundant array of independent disks) to servers. Many SAN utilize the SCSI (small computer system interface) protocol for communication between servers and storage devices.
A shared disk file system, or cluster file system, is an enterprise storage file system which can be shared (concurrently accessed for reading and writing) by multiple clients. A shared disk file system is typically utilized to share one or more virtual volumes of a SAN between multiple clients.
Removable media refers to storage media which can be removed from its reader device. Examples of removable media include floppy disks, CDs (including rewritable CDs), DVDs (including rewritable DVDs), tape cartridges, USB (universal serial bus) drives, removable hard drives, and memory cards.